bailey's chickadee 361 



PARUS GAMBELI BAILEYAE Grincell 



BAILEY'S CHICKADEE 



HABITS 



This race of the white-browed chickadees occupies the higher moun- 

 tains of southern CaHfornia, from Tulare and Monterey Counties to 

 San Diego County. It was named for that distinguished and popular 

 ornithologist, Mrs. Florence Merriam Bailey, who has done so much 

 for western ornithology. 



Dr. Joseph Grinnell (1918) gives as his diagnosis of it: "Tone of 

 coloration on sides, flanks and back distinctly plumbeous — more ex- 

 actly, on sides and flanks the 'smoke gray' of Ridgway (1912, pL 46), 

 and on back near the 'mouse gray' of the same authority (pi. 51). The 

 tail in this race is short as in ahhreviatus, but the bill is long and heavy, 

 averaging thicker through than in any of the other three races." 



Like other races of the species, Bailey's chickadee finds its favorite 

 haunts, during the breeding season at least, in the coniferous forests of 

 the mountains, from the lower borders of the pines up to 10,000 feet 

 or higher, or perhaps as far as the evergreen forest extends. In the 

 San Bernardino Mountains, Dr. Grinnell (1908) found these chicka- 

 dees in the tamarack pine belt as high as 10,600 feet; and in August 

 they were common in the pinyons and chaparral, and as far down the 

 desert slope as Cactus Flat, at 6,000 feet. 



Nesting. — J. Stuart Rowley writes to me: "I have found these 

 chickadees nesting in cavities and woodpecker holes rather abundantly 

 throughout the higher mountains of southern California. They nest as 

 high as 35 feet up and down to within a foot of the ground, as a rule, 

 but on June 9, 1935, while I was collecting on Mount Finos, Ventura 

 County, I saw a chickadee go down a squirrel hole underneath a 

 dead pine stub in a little clearing. Upon investigating, this bird was 

 seen on a nest on the ground in the excavation under the stub; the 

 nest contained five eggs ready to hatch. This is the only nest of a 

 chickadee I have ever found which was actually below the level of the 

 ground." 



In the San Bernardino Mountains, Dr. Grinnell (1908) reports: 



A nest found June 17, 1905, near the mouth of Fish Creek, occupied a vertical 

 slit in a dead black-oak stub. The nest was not more than three feet from the 

 {ground and was made of soft, do^\^ly plant fibers, and contained six newly- 

 hatched young. Another nest was f@und June 21 on a ridge near Dry lake. This 

 was twenty feet from the ground in a dead fir stub, and was ensconced behind the 

 loosened bark. It consisted of fur, apparently from the woodrat and chipmunk, 

 and contained five eggs in which incubation was well advanced. Another nest 

 containing seven young was found the same day in a cavity of a pine stub even 

 H'ith the surface of the ground. A fourth nest in the same locality contained $t% 



